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Authorization and Access Control C H A P T E R 1 8 Authorization and Access Control Thank you for reviewing the Whistler Server Resource Kit documentation. Post your feedback at the microsoft.betanews account under the microsoft.beta.whistler.documentation newsgroup using the following steps: 1. Create a new newsgroup message. 2. Use the title of the chapter as the subject line of your message. 3. Put your comments in the message, clearly identifying page number and changes to the text. You can also send the chapter with your comments to [email protected]. © 1985-2001 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The Microsoft Whistler operating system includes a number of features that you can use to protect selected files, applications, and other resources from unauthorized use. These features, which include Access Control Lists, security groups, and Group Policy, along with the tools that allow you to configure and manage these features, provide a powerful, yet flexible access control infrastructure for your network. Understanding what these features are, why they are necessary, and how they function will help you to manage privileges and permissions on network and local resources more effectively. In This Chapter Overview of Access Control User Accounts and Security Groups Working With Access Control Lists Managing User Rights through Security Groups Using Security Policy Auditing and Evaluating Access Control Related Information in the Resource Kits For more information about the authentication process and how security contexts are created, see "Logon and Authentication" in this book. For more information about authorization in Active Directory environments, see "Authorization and Access Control" in the Distributed Services Guide of the Microsoft Whistler Server Resource Kit. Overview of Access Control Every user and computer has a specific role and purpose in an organization. In order to accomplish their goals, each user and computer must be able to access certain resources and perform specific tasks. However, allowing users and computers unlimited access to system and network resources and functionality can compromise an organization's security and stability. Whistler's access control infrastructure functions to balance the resource access and system security needs of an organization. For example, Alice works in Accounting and needs to be able to view — but not create or modify — certain Personnel Department files that are off limits to other users in the organization. The Personnel department, which controls these files, has used access control to define which users can have Read-only access to Personnel files, which users can have Write and Modify access, and which users have no access to the Personnel share. Alice has been given Read-only access to the Personnel files. At the same time, IT has determined that prohibiting users such as Alice from making significant changes to their systems can reduce costs and improve security and supportability. IT has made Alice and other users members of the Users group, thus limiting their ability to install applications and reconfigure their operating system environments. In this way, Alice has the access to resources that she needs, and the security of the organization is maintained. Key Terms In order to understand the basic principles of access control, it is important to understand how the following key terms are defined in the context of the access control model for Windows 2000 and Whistler. Security principal. A user, group, computer, or service. Security principals have accounts. Local accounts are managed by the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) on the computer. If the account is in a native Windows 2000 or Whistler domain, it is managed by Active Directory. If the account is in a Windows NT 4.0 domain, it is managed by a SAM database on the domain controller. Security identifier (SID). A value that uniquely identifies a user, group, service, or computer account within an enterprise. Every account is issued a SID when it is created. Access control mechanisms in Windows 2000 and Whistler identify security principals by SID rather than by name. Security context. Information that describes a particular security principal's identity and capabilities on a computer. In Windows 2000 and Whistler, all users in an organization exist in a specific security context that is reestablished every time they log on. All activities, such as installing or running applications, take place in this security context. The security subsystem uses the security context to determine what a process and its threads of execution can do to objects on the computer, and who will be held accountable for what they have done. Access token. A data structure containing the SID for a security principal, SIDs for the groups that the security principal belongs to, and a list of the security principal's rights on the local computer. An access token is created for every security principal that logs on locally at the computer's keyboard or remotely through a network connection. The access token provides a security context for the security principal's actions on the computer. It also provides a security context for any application threads that act on the security principal's behalf. Object. Any resource that can be manipulated by a program or process. Objects include resources that you can see through the user interface, such as files, folders, printers, registry keys, Active Directory objects, and the Windows desktop. They also include resources that you cannot see, such as sessions, processes, threads, and access tokens. An object can function as a logical container for other objects. Inheritance. A mechanism for propagating access control information down through a tree of objects. In Windows NT, an object (such as a file) inherits access control information from its parent object (such as a folder) only when the object is first created. In Windows 2000 and Whistler, objects inherit access control information not only when they are created, but also when the parent object's access control list changes. Owner. The only security principal who has an inherent right to allow or deny permission to access an object. An object's owner can give another security principal permission to take ownership. By default, the built-in Administrators group on a computer is assigned a user right that allows this group to take ownership of all objects on the computer. Security groups. Groups that can be used to organize users and domain objects, thus simplifying administration. Security groups allow you to assign the same security permissions to a large numbers of users, such as employees in a single department or in a single location, ensuring that security permissions are consistent across all members of a group. Security descriptor. A data structure containing the security information associated with a securable object. A security descriptor identifies an object's owner by SID. If permissions are configured for the object, its security descriptor contains a discretionary access control list (DACL) with SIDs for the users and groups that are allowed or denied access. If auditing is configured for the object, its security descriptor also contains a system access control list (SACL) that controls how the security subsystem audits attempts to access the object. Access control list (ACL). An ordered list of access control entries (ACEs) that define the protections that apply to an object and its properties. Each ACE identifies a security principal and specifies a set of access rights allowed, denied, or audited for that security principal. Security settings. Security configuration settings that can be applied to individual computers. These settings can be configured locally on the computer using the Local Security Policy administration tool, the Security Configuration and Analysis snap-in to the Microsoft Management Console (MMC), or, if the computer is a member of an Active Directory domain, through the Security Settings extension to Group Policy. Key Concepts The security systems in Windows 2000 and Whistler are based on technologies originally developed for Windows NT. The access control models in Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Whistler share the same key concepts and characteristics, which are described in the following sections. Discretionary access to securable objects The user who owns an object has ultimate control over who has permission to use it and in what way. An object's owner can give permission for different kinds of access to particular users or groups of users. For example, the owner of a file object can give Read and Write permission to all members of one group while denying Write access to members of another group. In Windows 2000 and Whistler, owners can Allow or Deny other users access to individual properties of certain types of objects as well as to the entire object. The properties that can be delegated include the ability to Allow or Deny other users access to the object. Inheritance of permissions You can control permissions for new objects created in a container object by setting inheritable permissions on the container. The permissions that you set on a container are inherited by existing objects in the container, as well as by newly created objects. For example, the permissions that are set on an NTFS folder are inherited by new subfolders and files created within the folder. Auditing of system events You can use the auditing feature to detect attempts to circumvent protections on resources or to create an audit trail of administrative actions on the system. For example, you can audit failed attempts to open a file. You can also set security policy so that failed logon attempts are recorded in the security event log. If another administrator changes the auditing policy so that failed logon attempts are no longer audited, the log can record this event as well. In Windows 2000 and Whistler, you can use Group Policy to centrally control who is allowed to manage security logs on computers joined to a domain.
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